There's been 4 main versions of the game, which has gone through some major changes in rules, artwork/layout, "feel", technology, support, philosophy...
...But which is your favourite or most disliked - and why ??

This is historically a hot button topic. Feel free to share opinions but please be nice.

I've really only played 4th edition, so I'd have to say its my favorite by default.

I feel the system is the most streamlined and efficient in SR4.

That said, I prefer the setting and feel of SR2/3. I also felt they had the best fluff material.

I noticed that there were quite a few fluff books for SR3. I've been thinking about getting some just for the extra lore, but I'll probably just wait for the almanac to hit shelves (unless it has already, I'm not really keeping track, I just know there's an electronic version already.)

I´m a second edition man regarding the fluff, and a fourth edition man regarding the rules. I miss the metaplot.

Though I played both 1 and 2 when they came out, I can't really recall much about them. Most, well, all of my original stuff (including my 1st and 2nd ed D&D stuff, Star Frontiers, and whatever the hell I had back in the 80s and 90s) is all gone now. (Actually, I still have about 5 1st edition sr adventures, and naturally the adventure/sourcebook that my avatar comes from, the awesome Hawaii centered Paradise Lost)

I rather liked 3, as pointed out by others, it did have a nice array of fluff pieces and supplements. The problem 4 runs into now is, that balance between what has already been presented in previous editions, vs new stuff.

For example, for the most part Arsenal and Augementation basically take stuff from 3rd edition and barely reformat it for 4th edition coverage. I can see the challenge when it comes to other things, you don't just want to just redo all the 3rd edition stuff, or earlier stuff, but you also can't just bank on the idea that those of us with 4th ed also have earlier stuff. As noted, some newer members just have the 4th ed stuff.

But by that same nature, I don't think the market is all that big for SR stuff anymore, unless they can capture the newer younger market. So most stuff will be designed for people just picking up the game. Course, then you end up with people like me going, "huh. I wonder if I should get that. Or "I knew Arsenal when it was called Cannon Companion" For me, the big thing will be "If they come out with rigger 4, will I buy it?" I already bought 2 and 3, heck, I might have 1 lying around somewhere.

Even though I was introduced to Shadowrun via 1st ED I have the most nostalgia for 2nd ED, I think it was to do with the metaplot and some great novels that came out. 3rd ED didn’t really work for me or my players but we battled on with it because it was the latest incarnation. If Just comparing rules then 4th ED would come out Topps

GROAN

What? Did Dumpshock lose it's sense of humour while I was away lol

I am gonna have to echo much of what other have said. I really do like 4th from a rules standpoint, but I had the most fun with 2nd. The fluff/them oriented nature made for a great play experience. I was also playing with a great group back then, so that helped a lot.

Well, I've only really played 4th, but have had some exposure to 3rd. There were some things I liked about third, but overall I think I enjoy 4th more. It is true that 3rd had way more fluff books and such, but 4th is still (somewhat) new, and all those extra books are still being worked on. Kind of unfair to compare the two based on all the extra books when 4th been able to get all of its books out yet.

I think you'll find for many that it's not the quality or quantity of the fluff, but rather, the flavor of it.

I like my fluff sort of a lemon-lime, others want orange. Yes, I sort of ripped off Deus Ex right there. Gunther would be proud of me.

Ran enough games of 1st and 2nd edition I acquired a masters in Seattle Shadow Op's. I slacked off some after 3rd's release but kept up with things.
Although 2nd probably ate up the most of my life 4th has definitely a great improvement in SR's evolution. Fluff books are definitely worth going back and picking up if your a fan, collector or even curious about things that haven't been covered in 4th. Lot's of old fluff still holds up.

My personal ranking would be...

SR4A, then SR4, then SR2 and SR3 pretty much equal, then a long time nothing, and then SR1 (those auto successes and variable staging weirdness were just crazy).

I always disliked the target number modifications (esp. because of the probability weirdness when you went beyond TN#6), as it seemed so counterintuitive and in practice often evolved into trying to get a single really high roll as opposed to many hits/successes, which is the idea of the dice pool system (number of successes are the most important).

Even back in 2nd we played with a system that is very similar to what SR4 does. We also had the much more reasonably priced equipment. I was very happy to see that the official rules finally arrived there, too, after so many years.

While 4th edition isn't perfect and some parts of the older editions would still be nice (esp. missing the Dodge/Combat/etc. Pools, and the old school Shadowtalk, of course), all in all it's a great edition and works really smooth in practice.

Bye
Thanee

Well, i never played 1st Edition... And i am gamemastering a 4th for 3/4 year now. But my heart belongs 3rd edition (With some remnants of the 2nd - initiative rules for example). Just the FEEL of it... real cyberpunk + a bit biopunk and midlevel magic. Perfect mix, loved it.

Rules were complex, kept your brain working (OK, Rigger rules were just crap... but the rest were great), but easy to improvise. Fluff and rules were fitting and nice (Loved the shaman/magician split of the magic rules etc.)

Ah well. Maybe i will have the opportunity to play that again sometime.

I've played from 2nd to 4th Ed, mostly played 3rd but we moved onto 4th and it's probably catching up now.

I'd say 4th Ed has the best all round rules system, in terms of the feel of the game I don't really think the rules system you're using should influence that so much, it's down to how the GM runs the game.

3rd Ed had the best sourcebooks so far for me. Corporate Download, Shadows of Asia/Europe/North America, Target:Awakened Lands/Wastelands, Loose Alliances - all great books!! 4th Ed will have equivalents once the new corp book and the almanac hit shelves but I haven't seen them yet.

I really liked the SOTA books, YotC and Threats 2 too, I really like the advancing timeline and world events, 4th Ed hasn't had that yet, just the Dawn of the Artifacts campaign (only read Dawn so far).

Although I'd say 4th Ed is best all-round for rules there are some rules things I do miss from 3rd Ed:
1. Spirit Domains and the difference between spirits and elementals
2. I miss my combat pool, I liked the little pool of dice I could allocate to anything combat related, it was like "Full power to the shields!" or putting everything into gambling on one knockout punch
3. The Matrix. I get that it's better integrated now with the wirelessness but I liked the old system maps, I don't get the same feeling of there being a topography to the matrix anymore, it's like it's all just there in the system instead of a set of nodes like there used to be. The old matrix rules were complicated but I worked at it and got them, I ran a matrix campaign once and loved it. Re-routing your connection/tracing someone was better then and I liked the old LTG, RTG system.
4. Riggers were way better in SR3. I liked the different channels you had, don't like SR4 vehicles very much. I've a story I love from when I ran a rigger to do with them, but maybe this isn't the place for it.
5. Rolling big piles of dice, never seem to roll as many these days. Don't have as many initiative passes either (I think our group may just have matured and not be so munchy these days though)
6. Exploding dice! The fact that you could always hit any target number as long as you kept rolling 6s. It was just a mechanice that was so associated with Shadowrun for me that it took me a long time to let go when SR4 took it away (yes, I know you can still do it with Edge but it's not the same)

3rd is my favorite. while fourth has more character options, but 3rd feels like it just has much more i can do with it rules wise. i dont like the unified magic system and riggers and deckers being smooshed into hackers. i guess i just dont care for how things got streamlined. its great for bringing in new players but i feel like 4th is just lacking something.

1st and 2nd had the feel and style right.
3rd had the Riggers right, and was my favorite system for a long time. I still like it okay..but.
4th has the best system and gameplay.

I think my sig says it all but I'll elaborate a bit.

3e gives me everything I need to run Shadowrun while removing most of the not fun elements from prior editions. Throw in a few house rules from 4e and you have a really solid game.
4e is a lot like 1e in my opinion, it needs another edition or two to get the rules really solid. They also destroyed some of the old flavor in favor of new flavor but I think I could get over that when the rules are solid again.

I don't like SR4. Period. I think the whole System and Fluff are kinda dumb.
We are still playing SR4. And we are probably gonna stay with SR3 for quite a while, seeing how both of our GM's have planned at least one longer running campaign EACH . .
SR1 has been too long for me to really remember much if anything. And the same applies for SR2, because i never really got to play with that ruleset . .
It basically reintroduced me to the world of shadowrun, and then we switched to SR3 before anything got stuck in my head . . i only remember one thing from SR2.
Maximum-Bio-Index was a derivative of Body. And certain Bio and Cyber gave + to Body. So yes, you COULD make a real Bio-Monstrosity Troll, if you wanted to . .
I think i made a Character once just to prove that point where i had every single piece of Bioware at least once and at least one level . . And still had Bioindex left over @.@

3rd, but I am slowly coming around to 4th. I still don't like the way that Shamans and Hermetics have been made generic and that the Matrix is all magical now.

Well, except for that weird time after VR2.0 but before 3e... Spellcasting and Running a Program have been very similar I agree with the shame that the difference between a Shaman and a Hermetic is some stats... WHERE IS THE FLAVOR!

They still have as much flavor difference, they just don't have as much crunch difference.

1.5. Really its a toss up between 1 and 2e. But I'll edge it to 2e. For me they beat both 3e and 4e on the rules and 4e on the fluff.

I like them all and 3e would be up there with 2e for me if a couple things were changed. Like go back to 2e skills. It was weird that stealth was a skill that covered, hiding, following, palming etc(everything stealthy) but weapon skills were broken down to ridiculous degrees. Give me firearms as a single skill again.

Yeah but just how texture effects the flavor of food. Rules crunch effect the flavor of play.

@ Karoline, I sit corrected (because I'm sitting and not standing lol) you are right though hermetic mentor spirits still boggle my mind.

I played 3rd a lot, and 2nd an eensy bit. Mechanically, I like 4th the best. It's much more streamlined and easier to play (and especially to make characters, though that might just be because of the presence of spreadsheets).

Fluffwise, I think I like 4th best also: I enjoy the lighter, more post-cyberpunk tone of 4th. Plus, I like that the feel has been updated so it actually feels like the future instead of the future of the 80s. I realize that was a very controversial decision, but I like it.

3rd edition has the SCIRE.

-k "only ever played 4th" jones

I generally view mentor spirits for hermetics less as mentor spirits and more as ideologies. For a shaman, yeah, Wolf is walking around with you and telling you to eat that guy. For a Hermetic, there isn't a spirit around, it is simply that that is their personality, and it is strong enough to manifest itself as a bonus (At the cost of 5 BP )

The game always seemed a bit unclear to me if a mentor spirit was an actual spirit that followed you around (but you know, never actually helped you) or was simply a mental projection, or was a spirit that would contact you remotely (explaining why it never helped), or what, so, given the nature of magic, I figure it could be any of these things, and what it is is based more on tradition. For a Hermetic it is simply their personality (Or some aspect of it, perhaps even a repressed part) manifesting itself as a bonus, and for a Shaman it is an actual spirit that wanders around with them, or talks to them occasional or whatever.

Played them all, and I have to say that, Hands Down, I prefer SR4A... It has a MUCH Cleaner system all the way around...and the fluff from previous Editions is not gone, the world has just moved past it is all... that fluff STILL exists...

I've been playing and running games since 2nd edition (though I may have blown up the Space Needle in a 1st edition tournament...), and I must say that I really like 4th edition, but I'd really like to play a 3.75 edition. Oddly, I'd like to do the same with the Other Game as well.

4th Edition changes that I like:
- The wireless rules. You can actually run deckers/hackers as part of a regular game session. The VR 2.0 rules tried, and did a lot, but those rules (and their successors in 3rd edition) still were too slow.
- Reworked vehicles. Greatly increasing the Body and Armor dice makes them a lot more...vehicle like than in the old editions. Mind you, the vehicle rules are still a mess, but they are still an improvement.
- Deflation. I like that they dropped the price tags for things.
- Core rules include more stuff, like initiation and the like. The core book is a much more complete game than previous editions.
- The wireless rules. It bears mentioning twice.
- Deck construction is gone, along with the SOTA rules. Sweet Ghost, those were annoying as hell. I know what they were trying to do, and Unwired has an ugly echo of them in it, but they were a pain to actually use. Much like the decking rules in general.

Things I don't like:
- I miss the hermetic/shamanic magical split with the difference between elementals and spirits. I think a lot of the spirit balance issues I think come back to removing that split. It also was a fairly key piece of "fluff" that had wonderfully varied in-game effects. Before, a team really liked having a hermetic and a shaman, now...it's just two mages.
- The vehicle stuff. (Yes, I'm contradicting myself.) But they ended up dropping a lot of the detail that really brought the vehicles to life...and provided useful information. Like how many people can fit in a vehicle. Range/endurance/entry/exit things didn't often come up, but it was really nice to have that info on hand. Don't miss the "design from scratch" rules though...
- I miss the combat and spell pools. We lost the whole "I bet my life that this shot drops that enemy," effect they provided.

Still on the fence:
- I'm not sure if I like the new core mechanic. I miss exploding sixes and variable target numbers, and the new probability distributions don't work for me. Maybe I just need to play more to get an instinct for the odds like I had with 2nd and 3rd edition. But it still feels like the extremes don't work: it's too easy for unskilled folks to get all hits, and for really skilled folks to get none. There's nothing like what was in the earlier editions: having a target number of 14, rolling three dice and actually making it. Now, even if something is really hard, it reduces (at the extreme) to rolling one die and having a 1 in 3 chance...or having absolutely no chance at all.
- Technomancers. I never liked the otaku, both from story and from rules perspectives, and TMs don't feel right to me either. I understand the idea, and it's ballsy as hell, but it's just never clicked for me. Maybe I just haven't seen one played well. Maybe if they hadn't been in the core sourcebook, and then a later sourcebook said, "and now...technomancers appear!" I don't know.

So, I'm on the fence. If I had most of 4th edition, with some of the old magic rules/fluff and the 3rd edition core mechanic, I'd be happy as a clam that wasn't in the Gulf of Mexico (er, Aztlan).

They reprovided this stuff in arsenal. Vehicles now say how many people they can hold, and there is a general operation time slapped to all vehicles (from which a range can be found based on speed).

I have to admit this was one thing I very much liked about 3rd. It provided a 'you can be good on average, but you have to put it on the line to be great' mechanic, where is now your character is just always great or always good or always bad or whatever. It's removal does help streamline play a bit though as you don't have to keep track of how many dice you have in the pool.

Generally a difficult roll will be the result of a high threshold, not a massive DP penalty, in which case it works out very similar to the 'attempting to hit a 14 on 3 dice' Maybe not quite as much on the edge because you only have one roll instead of having to pick up the 6 and roll again, but it is once again a matter of streamlining gameplay. You don't have to pick out and reroll sixes any more, you just roll your dice once and that is it. Also, I'd have to disagree with it being too easy for someone with a low DP to get all hits. A DP of 4 only has a 0.15% chance of getting all hits. A DP of 8 only has a 0.00024% chance of getting no hits.

I very much like the idea of Technomancers, I'm somewhat less impressed with the execution, since they largely came out as hackers that just don't use a commlink instead of the notable difference you get between say a mage and someone with a gun.

It's been so long that I've played 1 & 2 that they meld together in my mind as the same edition -- and the one I played the most of. A few years past before I played/ran a few campaigns of 3, and I didn't notice any substantial change in game play. We always had a page or two of house rules that modded them anyway.

I have yet to play 4, but am trying to get a game started to see how it holds up. I was never a fan of technomancy, and will probably yank that for a start.

1st was my first truly groundbreaking game. I learned to be a good GM from reading Harlequin.

2nd was 1st ed, with many of the rules fixed and insanely better setting material. The only thing I thought was truly borked was the stupid rigger rules. (Maneuver Score, I'm talking to you!)

SR3 fixed what needed to be fixed in SR2, while leaving everything that made Shadowrun cool intact. The setting material wasn't the same, but you could port everything you liked over, easily enough. So, despite the fact that they kept the stupid rigger rules, SR3 gets my vote.

SR4 and 4.5... I really wanted to like them, but they're just not really Shadowrun anymore. Too many of the cool setting and mechanical elements were removed, in favor of a d6 NWoD clone. Unlike Tete, I don't have a love/hate relationship with SR4.5 as much as I have a "meh" relationship. It just doesn't set my brain afire the way that previous editions of SR do. Oh, and for the record? SR4.5 is basically SR4, rewritten by Dumpshock. Just about all the changes that help the game were debated to death here on Dumpshock.

Played 2nd long ago with my older brothers as a little kid, and have since jumped to 4A missions and my own home game. The newest edition of That Old Standard seems to have clean rules covered, so I enjoy the grit and GM interpretation that SR provides. 4A's rules are 'cleaner' but the little things can matter to a roleplayer. All in all though, I enjoy 4A a lot a lot a lot but I miss a bit of that 80's haircut decker flavor.

3

Been playing since 2nd Edition, here. And I think 3rd is still my favorite. It felt more polished than 2nd ed, and the material put out for it was some of my favorite. I still haven't played or GMed 4th enough to have a feel for if I dislike the rules much, although I don't mind the setting changes much. (I mean, I dislike that we essentially lost 5 years, but I just roll with it. Can't be helped. Things like manatech and wireless matrix are far less problematic for me).

Fourth would probably rate higher for me if there was just more of a release schedule. CGL has put out relatively little product, which would be okay if the product quality was higher, but... frankly, it isn't.

I am a militant 2ed ludite. I am running 2nd still with friends, and looking to run more online games.

What was so cool about 2nd:
initiative -- speed ruled
bioware limited by body
grounding
astral movement limited by organic matter
developers like Tom Dowd and Nigel Findley
Shadowrun novels - 2XS, fade to black
The timing of 2nd edition was perfect it was when tech in the books was turning into something real.
New material that wasn't rehashed from old material
Wireless was available but not absurdly pervasive

Caveats:
Don't get any players looking to run riggers
Use VR2 rules for deckers with some modifications. They function quickly.
I run matrix, astral and physical all at the same time so there is little or no pizza time.

Didn't like 3rd, I thought it nerfed street sams too much. Never tried 4th, and can't bring myself to try.

I've started with SR2, GMed and played SR3 and I currently GM and play SR4.

I can't say much about SR2: our GM ignored many rules (including the dice pools, it was hard and deadly) and the pink mohawk/cyberpunk atmosphere might have been made easier by the fact that we were young and didn't really care about the world's consistency or realism. Orks and trolls were dumb and liked to make a lot of noise and going in through the front door guns blazing was an acceptable strategy.

I've played a lot of SR3 and had a lot of fun with low to middle end characters but had trouble with higher-level characters. I also had some gripes with some of the rules (and how people abused them). As for the setting, even if most of the pictures had lost the 80s feel of SR2, it felt like the same, except a bit more mature than we used to play.

SR4 corrected some but not all of the issues I had with the rules. It's far from perfect but it's the best system for me. I haven't felt a lot of change in the setting and atmosphere in my games.

I for one miss rolling to hit for each and every bullet when firing full auto.

For me its definately 3. Played 2 and read 1. Only heard bits about 4. Generally don't like the idea of a maximum limit in skills. Otherwise the "hits" system sounds reasonable and very White Wolf.

As for fluff, 1 & 2 had all the best stuff with runner comments, adverts and lots of good visuals. Best book of them all had to be the Seattle Sourcebook (not New Seattle), purely because it was the most used book for my group.

Been playing the same SR 3campaign (with breaks for other systems) since 1999. No chance we are converting our characters now anyway. Our GM however is still getting the SR 4 books & adventures purely for fluff material. AR has been introduced into 2064 already... Deus is still out there so no Technomancers but we also have Earthdawn tied in heavily too...

Good times...

the writers have been preoccupied with bringing the crunch up to speed with the new rules system (and the delays in publishing from certain economic issues didnt help) but i think the recent corp guide is a nice indication that metaplot will be back as more books gets published.

Third edition for rules and second edition for fluff. The fourth edition rule set isn't bad, but I think the fluff has fallen off greatly in quality since third edition. I play a little 4th edition now, only because its the only SR game I have access to, and probably wouldn't be playing Shadowrun at all if I hadn't played the earlier editions.

Overall it was SR4 for me. Mainly because of the streamlined rules. I've played 1st through 4th, but my problem with 3rd was that the rules crunch was a bear (side note-the fluff from 3rd was some of the best). If the sourcebooks catalyst have put out so far are any indication, I think SR4 will eventually have enough fluff books to be comparable to older editions (I give it another couple of years).

1st edition-hey it was cool, but like the initial version of the game there was room for imporvement (damage codes were somewhat wonkey).
2nd edition-fixed the damage codes, eventually improved the matrix.
3rd edition-didn't play much, still had all the books. Had rules for just about everything (a boone and a curse)

I'm suprised they didn't introduce an Ares Predator IVA in the SR4A book--guess that means catalyst does not consider SR4A a new edition, just SR4 with a patch.


PS: I do miss combat pools though.

Same to You Chummer

I like SR4A (German Ed 'cause all the erratta are included) most and SR3 least.
I started with SR2 and it has a certain Nostalgia, but SR4A is my favourite
the only thing I'm really missing are the dicepools

with his favourite Dance
Medicineman

Been playing on and off since I picked up 1st edition corebook at the '89 GenCon. I learned to GM with Shadowrun and I ran nothing else until the mid-90s. I really enjoyed 1st edition and 2nd edition but I always had problems with the way the sub-systems didn't play well together and the wonkiness of the core die mechanic. Third edition cleaned some things up but deckers were still more trouble than they were worth. I've loved most of the fluff in all editions; except for SURGE, which can go DIAF. I believe that 4th edition has the best overall rule set, even if I don't like every single change. I also like the thematic and technological updating of the setting. I don't miss cyberdecks and I have little nostalgia for 80's cyberpunk overall. It was great back in SR1 and SR2 but by SR3 I felt the setting was getting creaky. Fourth edition addressed many of those problems for me.

So, while I've enjoyed all of the editions, SR4A is the best overall package.

3rd edition is still my favorite. The only thing I don't really like about it is the Decking system. Haven't seen much need to move to 4th yet.

I started with 2nd edition... Loved the setting and fluff, hated the rules. Some ideas were interesting (like combat pools), but they also made a game slow - it's one of major reasons why SR didn't get popular in my country. I never played 3rd edition, but fluff in those books that I know is awesome.
So my favourite is SR4/SR4A - best rules IMO (good for new players), AR is a great tool and fluff is still nice.

Overall I'm not seeing much love for 1st edition, the one that started it all. Ah well, such is the way of things when shiny new stuff is available.